Before I say anything else I ought to declare an interest – as, along with my co-authors at Hurwitz, I’ve just completed writing the second edition of SOA for Dummies. Make no mistake about it, Wiley were very eager for us to write that 2nd edition, because the first edition sold so well. So the news, which recently broke, that “SOA is Dead” filled me with great joy.
As everyone knows, if you write a biography of someone and, just as it’s about to be published, they shuffle off their mortal coil and join the choir invisible, you’ve got a best seller on your hands. So it’s time to sit back and watch the royalties roll in. No doubt the same will happen with our new tome, if SOA really is dead.
But before charging off and selling the homestead in Texas to retire to the Bahamas, I thought I’d ping a few of my contacts, surf the web and research the matter. Sadly it isn’t long before I realize that the demise of SOA is much exaggerated. SOA is not only alive and kicking, it isn’t even confined to its sick bed on doctors orders. It’s up and out there jogging in the park with the rest of those other healthy IT concepts like mashups, Open Source and cloud computing.
The Greek Chorus
Prompted by this unwelcome discovery I surf around a little to try to discover who has been declaring SOA dead.
Wouldn’t you know it?
It’s that usual Greek Chorus of commentators, who don’t actually know how to build systems, but know how to write about building systems as if they were people who knew how to build systems. Now I’m in favor of drama, particularly classical drama, even though I’m well aware that the modern audience has real problems getting its mind around a Greek Chorus. You only need to attend a performance of the Oresteia by Aeschylus, and watch the audience instead of the play, to realize that.
Nevertheless there’s no getting away from the fact that a Greek Chorus, which comments on the action without actually being a part of the action is absolutely necessary in situations where it’s absolutely necessary. In the modern Greek Tragedy, the SOAestia the role of the Greek Chorus is utterly crucial. The story is a relatively simple one. SOA appears, conquers all previous architectures and he is elected to design all the IT sites in Ancient Greece.
Unfortunately, SOA has been too arrogant and has slighted Pallas Athena by inferring that her client/server strategy was crap. So Pallas Athena teams up with another client server buff called Poseidon, who sends a mighty tidal wave called Recession to engulf SOA and destroy him completely. I’m sure you’re getting the picture. Naturally, when you get to this point in the play, the Greek Chorus is chanting “SOA is Dead, SOA is dead” in the fashion of soccer fans who’ve imbibed a little too much fermented hop juice.
But – and this is definitely a departure from the usual format of Greek drama – Zeus intervenes, pulling SOA by the scruff of his neck up to the summit of Mount Olympus, and the tidal wave simply drowns the whole Greek Chorus.
Damn!
Of course the problem I have with this is that I’d prefer that SOA was dead, so that the sales of SOA for Dummies could shoot up into the stratosphere, but unfortunately I am obliged to report that all this “SOA is dead” stuff stems from a sorry misunderstanding of the play.
P.S. Please don’t link to this posting or recommend it in any way. The more people who believe that SOA is dead, the better, as far as I’m concerned.
Sadly, having gathered input from quite a few thousand people on SOA related activity over the past three years across the US, Europe, and a number of emerging markets, I have to confirm that SOA is very much alive and kicking. We are generally picking up much more success than failure in our quantitative research studies. So bad news for the book I’m afraid
Or is it? The most common situation we find at the moment is people looking to learn more and evolve their approaches after proving the concept. The first couple of projects tends to confirm the direction, but also raises a bunch of questions about how to take things to the next level. Is your book available in Polish, Hungarian, etc? If not, Wiley should translate. The state of SOA interest/maturity there is perfect for the Dummies treatment.
It is, as you suggest, terrible news for the book. We were hoping that SOA had died in the same way that Elvis died, with no-one being exactly sure whether SOA was dead or not. Then there would be rumors about SOA being spotted in a data center in Memphis or at a truck stop on Route 66.
Some people would maintain that SOA was actually living under an assumed name in Luxemburg, or hiding in the jungles of Guatamala or sharing a cave with Osama Bin Laden on the borders of Afghanistan. Sales of the book would be awesome and I’d keep appearing on television to comment on the various “supposed” sightings of SOA.
Don’t forget the Deus Ex Machina!
In Greek drama, the deus ex machina, “god from the machine”, was a device whereby the dramatist tidied up an unruly outcome by bringing in a “spokesgod” to explain what the play itself did not but should have.
In a Wikimedia entry for “Benevolent Dictator” (of all things) we are reminded of this element of the SOAestrian Tragedy:
“The most famous example of deus ex machina from ancient drama is probably the ending of the Oresteia: even the gods are at a loss whether Orestes was wrong in killing his mother or right in avenging the death of his father. At this point some deus ex machina descends and proposes a solution (note: not all dramatists use the same god(s) at this point, neither do they all give exactly the same plot ending to the Oresteia cycle).”
If commentators are the Greek Chorus, does that make analysts the Deus Ex Machina?
Riff on…
Holding both sides and LOL….
Robin, I think what some see as the “Death of SOA” is just a natural part of the way new technology is adopted. Instead of looking too close, zoom out take the longer view: The time has come for the ‘Architecture’ part of SOA.
http://rasmussenreport.wordpress.com/2009/02/16/the-death-of-soa-maybe-later/
I just blogged that I think “Big SOA is Dead; Little SOA is Thriving” at: http://tinyurl.com/soa-today2 . Ok, maybe Big SOA isn’t “dead”, but certainly struggling to convince companies to invest in BPM, BAM, ESB (Big SOA) in today’s economic climate is a tough, academic sell when they can go Little SOA with positive ROI. Organizations want rapid results– they want SOA Today and not 6-9 months down the line!
My response: http://architecture-soa-bpm-eai.blogspot.com/2009/03/is-soa-dead-nope.html
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